Thornaby Railway Station. In the distance the Thornaby coking plant and ‘torch’ can be seen. These photographs were taken shortly before the station was demolished in the 1980s.
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
Thornaby Railway Station. In the distance the Thornaby coking plant and ‘torch’ can be seen. These photographs were taken shortly before the station was demolished in the 1980s.
I once once had a girlfriend who’s father had been a merchant seamen on convoys during WWII. He was torpedoed 3-times and once spent 21-days in an open boat, before rescue. A tough character, no doubt. However, he once related to me the story of how during the war, a shipmate and himself were on Thornaby railway station awaiting to return to Middlesbrough after attending a dance in Stockton. Having had a few drinks, they began to ‘set up their lip’ to a large Canadian airman who was also waiting on the platform (no doubt a ‘sea’ v ‘air’ thing)? Eventually the encounter erupted to actual blows being exchanged, during which the Canadian airman ‘knocked-out’ the shipmate and badly injured my girlfriends father. As he jokingly added, “I received more serious ‘war-wounds’ on the platform of Thornaby Station on one night, than I ever did from the German Navy, in six years at sea…what a fella!”
Ah, Thornaby station, I remember this barn of a station in the 1950’s and 1960’s when we visited grandparents in Raby Road. From the station (or was it elsewhere in the town)? We would take the No. 4 or 5 Corporation bus out to Oxbridge Avenue and a short walk to Raby Road, close by the old freight line (now a cycle/walk way) which often features on this website. Trains from Thornaby to our holiday accommodation at Saltburn were steam in the 1950’s and diesel when we returned from 3 years abroad in the early 1960’s. The island platform and layout at Thornaby were repeated further down the line at Grangetown, Cargo Fleet and South Bank, now all just memories. At one time in the 1960’s (? and 1950’s), there were through trains to and from London on summer Fridays and Saturdays, and I think there was a daily (? twice daily) service to and from London for a while in the 1980’s. I’ve been through Thornaby a few times in recent years, and although it looks cleaner than when I knew it 50 or more years ago, the canopies have all gone and the station looks a functional shadow of its former self.